Trump launches crackdown on Central American asylum seekers

Washington: The United States embarked Friday on a policy of automatically rejecting asylum claims of people who cross the Mexican border illegally in a bid to deter Central American migrants and force Mexico to handle them. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at halting the flow of migrants seeking to cross into the United States without authorization, most of them requesting asylum due to violence in their home countries. “The continuing and threatened mass migration of aliens with no basis for admission into the United States through our southern border has precipitated…